HOUR ARITHMETIC Kumiko Muraoka
\nToday is already the eighth day of spring, and this is the twenty-seventh spring. I am beginning to
\nunderstand that times and that things all the methods for measuring time: cutting notches on the
\nflow of time, making bouqets of the seconds, putting them in rows on paper. Sometimes time seems to be a ribbon, sometimes a point, sometimes minusucule thorns.
\nThe length of time is the thing that is the most difficult to understand. One day it’s too short, or too long, endless. That’s why there are men who devote their life to keeping watch over the lentgh of time, we call them \u201cscientists. \u201d But scientists have never understood the length of
\nthe time in which they are living, and they disappear suddenly from the earth.
\n\uff0a
\nOn the Yurakucho viaduct pass circle-line trains, under the viaduct, a silent cobbler-shoe-shiner
\nis seated on a small wodden stool. He is there all winter and summer, squeezed into clothes that he puts on over each other. On him he is carrying all the clothing that he possesses, but he’s always numb with cold. It’s because of this wind passing under the viaduct. which is different than
\nthat blowing from the other side, several feet from there.
\nThe hands of the shoe-shiner are dried out, blackened, deformed,the pupils of his eyes are constantly dilated. In the obuscuruty, he can make out the grey luster of the nails and pound them
\ninto the sole with dexterity; he has’t ever lost a single one, or struct it sideways, or missed. The
\neyes of the cobbler are extreamly sensitive to miniscule objects: needles, threads, nails, leather
\nremants\u2026\u2026But his eyes can’t forcus on larger objects.
\nThere are now two mutes and a hunchback leaning his hump against the cement wall. When there
\nare’nt any customers, the cobblers’ conference is held:they chat, gossip and laugh with their heads thrown back, their gestures more and more lively more and more frentic, strange. You can’t hear their conversation, because of the trains passing ceaselsely over their heads.
\nThey have come to the conclusion that the sun is a kind of crawling animal. It’s is never far from where they are, but it never comes to see them. They find that incoprehensible. One of them,
\nhoever, has found an explanation: \u201cMeybe it has no shoes. \u201d They burst out laughing as a sign of triumph. The triumph of intelligence.
\nBut the eyes of the cobbler don’t see the length of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HOUR ARITHMETIC Kumiko Muraoka Today is … \u7d9a\u304d\u3092\u8aad\u3080